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War of the Worlds
Background War of the Worlds was initially an arcade game. It was released by Cinematronics both for a black and white vector monitor in 1979 and for a color vector monitor in 1982. The game saw extremely limited production because it was not received well at the 1982 Amusement Machine Operators of America (AMOA) Show due to a perceived lack of difficulty and insufficient hardware to run it. Less than 10 units are believed to exist. The Vectrex version is a port of the arcade original, although with several added features, such as two skill levels, an added pause/status screen and a mothership to contend with in addition to its use of a joystick rather than buttons to control movement. It's the fact that the original vector arcade version was so rare that it attracted George Pelonis to program this port. Gameplay The player controls a turret pod as Martian tripods advance with the only objective but to annihilate. Martian tripods attack with sweeping laser cannons while the player can either dodge or defend themselves using shields. The player may fire upon the tripods but it requires four hits before they are destroyed. Between waves of tripods, the Mothership will descend and shoot an onslaught of shurikens. Only the shurikens may be destroyed, as the player's fire is not powerful enough to harm the Mothership. Scoring * Destroy Tripod-20 points * Destroy Shuriken-10 points * Destroy all the Shurikens during the battle with the mothership to restore all droids and shields Controls Main Menu * Start game (Medium)–button one * Start game (Easy)-down with joystick/D-pad plus button one * Start game (Hard)-up with joystick/D-pad plus button one * Choose between easy or default levels–up or down or joystick or D-pad (during start of a new game only) * Start game (Easy)-down with joystick or D-pad plus button 1 * In-game *Move droid left or right-left or right on joystick/D-pad * Status/pause–button two *Shield–button three *Fire–button four Trivia *The arcade original was a little-seen game that did not have much distribution. * The premise of War of the Worlds is considered that of a 3D perspective Space Invaders. *A watch was included with the mothership on it for the limited edition War of the Worlds Time Rift, which is the exact same game as the wider-released version, but with a hyperspace-like function where the player's ship will disappear and then reappear after a few seconds when activated. Only 10 copies of this version was made, coming in a special boxed set. *Three people played War of the Worlds on the first International Play Your Vectrex Day on November 1, 2012, making it one of the most popular homebrews played on that day, tying with Gravitrex for third place (which Vector Pilot came in first place). Two people played the regular version while programmer George Pelonis played the Time Rift version. Videos were made of the gameplay for each version (see Links section below). *Two homemade overlays were made, one from YouTube user vintersphrost, which was based on the Scramble overlay (which neither version of the game came with one). The other version was made by YouTube user gliptitude. Links *Official site *vintersphrost's and FURY's Time Rift version and other videos of the game can be seen on YouTube Category:Vectrex games Category:Homebrew Category:Shooter